Second Child Part 31

She came to the landing and reached for the light switch, but knew even before the brilliant light blinded her for a moment that Tag was not up here.

The door to his room stood open, just as it had been when she'd come upstairs a few hours ago. Still, she moved on, checking both bedrooms and the bathroom.

She went back downstairs, going automatically to the kitchen, where she put a pot of water on the stove to make a cup of coffee. Then, as she waited for the water to heat, she tried to decide what to do.

Her first impulse was to go to the main house and wake up Mr. Charles. But if she did that, she would awaken Phyllis as well, and even as she stood at the stove, she could see the look on Phyllis's face and hear her words.

"You woke us up simply because Tag didn't come home? Really, Cora, I can't understand how you could be so inconsiderate! I've had a terrible day..."

And it would go on and on, until finally Mr. Charles put on a robe and the two of them went downstairs together. But tomorrow Phyllis would still be angry at having her sleep interrupted, and she wouldn't take it out only on Cora.

She would take it out on Melissa, too.

No, talking to Mr. Charles would have to wait until morning.

What about the police?

She almost grinned as she imagined their response. They'd think she was turning dotty, reporting a teenage boy as missing when he'd actually only been gone a few hours and it was still only a little after one in the morning.

And maybe they'd be right-maybe there really wasn't anything to worry about. After all, how many nights had Tag's father stayed out all night when he was the same age as Tag was now?

She couldn't even remember, it had happened so often. And usually he came home--if he came home at all-so drunk he could barely stand up.

The teapot began to whistle, and she put a teaspoon of instant coffee into a mug, then filled the cup with hot water.

Maybe all that was happening was that Tag was finally growing up, she told herself. Maybe he'd just decided it was time for him to go out and have some fun.

But even as she tried to convince herself that was all that had happened, she knew she didn't believe it. Tag wasn't at all like his father, and never had been.

She stirred the coffee, then took a sip, wincing as the nearly boiling fluid scalded her mouth.

Taking the mug with her, she went back into the living room. Completely alone in the house for the first time in nearly fifteen years, a strange feeling came over her.

She felt lonely. Lonely, and vulnerable.

She glanced around uneasily; the black rectangles of the windows seemed to gaze back at her, and she suddenly had a crawly feeling that there were eyes outside, watching her. Setting the mug down, she moved from one window to the other, closing the drapes.

Her eyes went to the wood laid in the hearth for a fire, and she toyed with the idea of lighting it. But it was midsummer, and the night was already warm. Though the flames themselves might make her feel better, the heat of them would quickly become unbearable.

She went back to her chair and picked up her book once more. Perhaps if she could concentrate on reading, she could put her worries out of her mind. But as she tried to focus her eyes on the words, she only became more and more conscious of the emptiness of the house.

And she also had a strange feeling that something was wrong outside the house.

She tried to a.s.sure herself that she was letting her imagination get the better of her, but the harder she tried to ignore the uneasiness, the stronger it got.

"You're a foolish old woman," she finally muttered to herself as she got once more to her feet. "You've got yourself all worked up over what's probably nothin' at all, and now you're going to scare yourself half to death, imagining things that aren't there." But despite her words, she moved to the front door, switched on the light, and stepped out on the porch.

The blackness of the night hung all around her, seemed to close in on her, and the uneasy feeling blossomed inside her. Her first instinct was to go back into the house and lock the door behind her, but she determinedly put her fears aside.

If something was wrong, a voice inside her whispered, it almost surely involved Tag.

She stepped off the porch and out of the bright circle of light from the lamp next to the door.

Teri stared at Melissa in the dim moonlight that streamed through the pottingshed door. Her eyes were open now, and fixed once more on the grisly corpse beneath the floor. But she'd stopped crying, and a calm seemed to have come over her since she'd uttered her strangled plea for D'Arcy to help her.

Suddenly Teri understood. It was just like that night when she'd found her half sister strapped to the bed, gazing blankly at the ceiling. And now it had happened again. Melissa's own personality had shut down, to be replaced by the "friend" she'd invented to shield herself from the reality of what was happening to her.

It was perfect.

Even more perfect than Teri had hoped.

A light suddenly came on-the light on Cora's porch-shining brightly in the night, and Teri instantly snapped off the flashlight and drew back into the deep shadows of the shed. A moment later she saw the silhouette of a figure against the brightly lit wall of the housekeeper's cottage.

Cora-still awake, still waiting for Tag. If she came this way...

But it was all right; Cora seemed to be going the other way, circling around her house.

"Wipe the machete off, Melissa," she whispered as loud as she dared.

Melissa remained where she was, unmoving, as if she hadn't heard Teri at all. And then Teri remembered.

"D'Arcy?" she asked. Melissa's head moved slightly and her strange, vacant eyes fixed on Teri. "You want to help Melissa, don't you? Isn't that why you're here?"

Melissa's head slowly nodded.

"Then clean off the machete," Teri whispered again. "Pick it up and wipe the blood off the blade."

As she watched, Melissa obediently reached out and took the weapon in her hand, wiping at the blood with a rotting rag that was lying in a corner of the floor.

"That's right," Teri whispered. "Now drop the rag in the hole."

Moving like an automaton, Melissa obediently dropped the rag onto Tag's body.

"Now help me," Teri went on. "We have to get the boards back in place."

She picked up the end of one of the floorboards and shifted it into position over the hole in the floor, and Melissa silently repeated her motions at the other end. Seconds later all the boards were back in place, the gap in the floor had disappeared, and the machete was once more leaning against the wall of the pottingshed.

"You have to go back to the house now, D'Arcy," Teri whispered. Her eyes scanned the pool of light in front of Cora's house, but the old woman was still nowhere to be seen. "You have to take Melissa back to her room and put her back in bed." Melissa said nothing, but again her head bobbed obediently. "Go around the bathhouse, so if anyone sees you, they won't know where you're coming from."

She searched the darkness once more for any sign of Cora, then nudged Melissa gently through the door. Melissa, her eyes staring blankly ahead, moved through the darkness toward the bathhouse.

Teri herself, after checking the pottingshed one more time, hurried back around the garage, ducked into the deep shadows by the walls of the house, and slipped through the French doors, locking them behind her.

Cora finished her circuit of the house, having seen nothing, and was about to go back inside when a flicker of movement near the pool caught her eye. She shaded her eyes against the glare of the porch light, then reached inside and flipped the switch. A moment later, as her night vision returned, the figure by the pool emerged clearly out of the darkness.

A figure, clad in white, moving slowly toward the back door of the house.

A gasp escaped Cora's lips as she instinctively remembered all the tales she'd heard of D'Arcy. A moment later her reason returned, and with it, the certainty that she knew who the figure was.

Leaving the porch still dark, she moved quickly down the steps and crossed the lawn, slowing as she approached the pale figure. She could see it clearly now, and nodded to herself as she realized she'd been right.

It was Melissa, her eyes open, her arms hanging limply at her sides, moving toward the house.

Moving toward the house, but sound asleep.

Instantly, Cora remembered the instructions she'd received when Melissa's sleepwalking had first begun.

"The doctor says the most important thing is not to frighten her," Charles had told her. "It'll probably never happen, but if you ever have to deal with it, try not to wake her up. She might wake up anyway, and if she does, just tell her she's all right, explain what happened, and get her back to bed. But you might be able to get her back to bed without waking her up at all. Just speak softly to her and try to guide her back to her room."

Taking a deep breath, Cora caught up with Melissa and gently took her arm. "It's all right, darlin'," she whispered. "It's just Cora, and I'm gonna get you back to your bed."

She paced herself to match Melissa's somnolent stride, gently restraining her for a moment at the back porch while she fished in her pocket for the key to the back door. As she opened the door and guided Melissa inside, she reached for the light switch, but stopped herself just in time, realizing that the sudden brilliance of the kitchen lights would be sure to awaken and frighten the girl.

She guided Melissa across the kitchen to the butler's pantry door, as familiar with the layout of the house in darkness as she was in broad daylight.

"That's right," she crooned. "Through the dining room now, and up the stairs."

They skirted the dining room table, moving into the foyer, then started up the stairs. At the second-floor landing Melissa paused, then started down the corridor in the exact opposite direction of her room. Cora's brows knit into a puzzled frown for a moment, but then she understood.

The attic.

As she had so many times before in her sleep, Melissa was heading once more for the tiny chamber beneath the eaves of the house.

"No, darling," Cora whispered. "Not tonight."

She moved around to block Melissa's way, and the girl stopped, staring at her vacantly. Then, as Cora gently turned her around, a puzzled look came into her eyes.

"It's all right," Cora a.s.sured her once more. "You're safe inside, and nothing bad is going to happen to you now."

Melissa's lips moved and a word, barely audible, drifted from them. "Safe?"

"Yes," Cora whispered. "You're perfectly safe. Your mother's sound asleep, and no one knows what happened."

A sigh escaped Melissa's lips, and then her eyes closed. For a moment she stood perfectly still, and then her knees buckled under her and she collapsed onto the floor. Instantly, her eyes flew open, and when she looked up at Cora, the dim glow of the night-light illuminating her face, the old woman could see the panic in her eyes.

"C-Cora?" Melissa stammered. Her eyes flicked around the corridor like those of a hunted animal searching for an unseen predator. For a moment she felt completely disoriented, and then a memory surged up in her mind. A memory of being in the pottingshed, and looking down into a hole in the floor, and seeing...

She choked back a sob as the rest of it came back to her. But what had happened? Why was she in the hall?

Why was Cora with her?

How had she gotten here?

Wordlessly, she stared up at Cora.

"It's all right, sweetheart," Cora told her, reaching out to help her back to her feet. The old housekeeper's mind raced. She could see how terrified Melissa was-if only she'd kept sleeping another minute, she'd have had her back in her bed.

"Wh-Where...how did I get here?"

"Hush, child," Cora said, her mind still working, searching for a way to keep from frightening Melissa any more than she already was. "It's all right. I-I just couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd have a gla.s.s of warm milk. And wouldn't you know, I'd run out. I came into the kitchen to get some, and heard you tramping around up here." She forced a chuckle. "Lord knows, you were loud enough to wake the dead. But your mother didn't hear you, so it's all right. We'll just get you back to bed. All right? Or maybe you'd like to come downstairs with me. We could both have a gla.s.s of milk." She knew she was rattling on, knew that if Melissa thought about it, her words wouldn't make much sense. But as she looked at Melissa, she wasn't sure the child had even heard her. Her frightened eyes had taken on a puzzled look, as if she were still trying to figure out what had happened.

"You were walking in your sleep again, darling," Cora said now, gently taking Melissa's arm and steering her toward her room. "I think you were going up to the attic again. But it's all right. I caught you in time, and no one need be the wiser. Let's just get you back to bed."

They were in front of Melissa's door now, and suddenly Melissa froze.

The dress.

She and Teri had left the bloodstained dress lying on the floor of her room. And when Cora saw it...

Cora pushed the door open and snapped the light on, and Melissa's eyes instantly went to the spot where the dress had lain.

It was gone.

Numbly, she allowed Cora to guide her into her room and help her out of her robe. Barely aware of what was happening, her mind still whirling with confusion, she let herself be put to bed, felt Cora tuck the covers around her. "There," she heard the housekeeper whisper. "All back in bed, all safe." She felt Cora's lips brush her cheek, felt her gentle fingers stroke her brow. "Just go back to sleep," Cora told her. "Everything's all right now."

A few minutes later, after Cora had gone, Melissa got out of bed and went to the window. Outside, barely visible, she could see the corner of the pottingshed sticking out from behind the garage.

Had she really been out there? Or was it possible that the whole thing had been a dream?

No. The memory of it was too vivid, too real. She and Teri...

Teri.

Teri had gone with her. It must have been Teri who retrieved the dress.

But there was still that gap in her memory, from the time she had seen the horrible sight beneath the floor of the pottingshed, when she had called out to D'Arcy-called for her friend to come and help her-to the moment she had come awake in the hall outside her room.

It was gone, a blank void in her mind, gone just as surely as if it had never existed at all.

Turning away from the window, she slipped into the bathroom between her room and Teri's, then tapped softly at the door to Teri's room. When there was no reply, she turned the k.n.o.b and gently pushed the door open. In the dim moonlight she could barely make out Teri's sleeping form, sprawled on the bed, covered by a sheet.

Hesitantly, almost shyly, Melissa crept across to the bed and knelt down. "Teri?" she whispered. "Teri, are you awake?"

There was no response from her half sister.

Melissa reached out and touched Teri's shoulder. Teri moaned softly and rolled over, turning her back to Melissa.

Melissa's heart raced. How could Teri be this sound asleep so quickly? Only a few minutes ago they'd both been out in the pottingshed.

Unless...

Inhaling sharply, she grasped Teri's shoulder and shook her. "Teri!" she whispered loudly. "Teri, wake up!"

Teri rolled over and sat up. Her eyes blinked a few times, then she squinted at Melissa in the dim moonlight.

"Melissa?" she asked, her voice sounding thick with sleep. "Wh-What time is it?"

"I-I don't know," Melissa stammered.